In Hindsight: The Ultimate Fighter 5 – Episode 2

Last week, Cole Miller tapped out Allan Berube.

After the Fight
Cole cries and “wins” a makeshift belt that Team Pulver has created. Hey, at least he had a reason to cry.

Fight Selection
Before fight selection, we get a helpful graphic updating us on the standings:

B.J. tries to be a shit disturber when he gets Robert to call out Corey for a fight that Team Penn wants to happen, and Robert does a GREAT job of trash talking. Dana notes that B.J. is again trying to one up Jens, but Pulver is having none of that and after teasing Gabe the Middleweight, we get Manny vs. Noah. Surprising that they didn’t want Gabe.

The House
“Monstah” is back and he’s the first official alternate in the competition, which makes sense since people are bound to get hurt, and otherwise, you spend 5 weeks or so doing nothing when you could at least be learning from Penn or Pulver’s team. As a trivia note, Sakuraba won the UFC’s Ultimate Japan tournament as a “Lucky Loser”.

The fighters get massages, and Gabe cuts a promo on teammate Matt Wiman, which Matt doesn’t appreciate. Team Pulver doesn’t mind, because if Team Penn beats one another up, it makes their job easier.

Team Penn invites some girls on horseback they see riding by to come over, and one of the horses slip due to the wearing of horseshoes and trying to walk on cement. And so we get shots of the guys helping getting the horse back to his feet.

During a day off, Team Penn gets the brilliant idea of throwing “spears” (a tiki torch pole with a spike at the bottom) at someone holding a shield. Luckily for these geniuses, Joe has the idea of testing this with a ball… which ends up hitting Rob right in the bollocks.

Then they write a message for the troops overseas. Rob writes “Suck it Team Pulver” on the wall. Which naturally gets someone (this time it’s Nate) riled up when Team Pulver gets back. Rob, to his credit, admits to the graffiti and apologizes. Then Brandon and Gabe have words. And then Manny snaps and goes off against everyone… but apparently he’s ok with Gray. Matt notes that it’s a sad day for mankind, while Team Pulver wants him to calm down and save his energy for the fight. Corey, of all people, is the voice of reason and tells him to ignore the trash talk.

Training
Noah knows that he’s an underdog, but B.J. likes him because he’s all business.

Matt and Gabe continue yapping. B.J. decides to sit down and talk with the team. Matt and Gabe don’t shake hands, but it’s back to business.

Now we get to see Manny train. His cousin is Judo fighter Karo Parisyan, and he fights about the same style. Jens thinks that Manny’s a tank.

Noah’s an ex-Marine, and feels that he’s more tenacious than the rest of the fighters. He’s had 40 fights in 2 and a half years, which is the same amount of time that Manny was out with a shoulder injury.

Weigh-ins
Noah weighs 154.5 while eating a sandwich. Manny is 156 and Dana notes that he’s solid.

Preliminary Fight #2 – Noah Thomas (10-4) vs. Manny Gamburyan (8-2)
The referee is Steve Mazzagatti and his porn moustache.

Round 1
Noah gets rocked by a right and Manny charges in. Noah controls with a guillotine but Manny tosses him down like he weighs nothing. Manny’s in guard and throws down, gaining side control. Noah tries to get back to guard but Manny is doing a good job of controlling and landing punches, easily passing guard to side control. Now Manny goes north-south and secures a kimura (which B.J. tells us can cause so much pain that you can’t wipe your ass for 10 months. Thanks, B.J.!) , leading to a very quick tap from Noah.

Winner: Manny Gamburyan (Tapout -> kimura, 2:09 R1)

After the fight, Noah is obviously disappointed, and Dana is impressed with Manny’s ability. B.J. offers Noah some sound advice – don’t ever let your opponent pass your guard, which is pretty easy advice to give when you’ve got insane flexibility like B.J. Penn.

See you next week.

Sir Linksalot: The Ultimate Fighter